COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY
MINUTES
Monday, December 18, 2006
Approved 1/29/07
Members Present: Rep. Kathie Keenan, Co-chair; Sen. Ginny Lyons, Co-chair;
John Boomhover; Lawrence Bruce, Jr.; Daniel Brush; Elliot Burg; Dana Eidsness; John Waite
Members Absent: None
Also Present: Legislative staff and the public
Recording: CD 2006 – 9, 10, 11
Convene, Review and Approve 11/27/06 Meeting Minutes
At 1:30 p.m. Senator Lyons convened the meeting in Room 11 of the Vermont State House. The minutes were approved unanimously.
National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) Meeting Update; Other Meeting Updates; Coordination with Other States
Al Boright, Robin Lunge, and Sam Burr, Legislative Counsel, updated the Commission on the NCSL meeting. As directed by the Commission, Legislative Counsel looked into whether there were existing efforts to coordinate comments on Fast Track by state commissions. Public Citizen is organizing efforts and the Forum on Democracy and Trade is also looking at coordinating a regional response from the New England commissions. NCSL has a policy on Fast Track which Counsel will provide to the Commission. In addition, NCSL has two listservs that members of the Commission might be interested in and Robin will sign them up unless an individual member let's her know he or she is not interested.
There were two substantive issues discussed at NCSL, which the Commission may be interested in taking positions on. First, many states are concerned that USTR might include domestic regulation rules, which generally limit state authority, in the GATS negotiations. This issue was discussed later in the meeting. Second, several states were concerned about the lack of input to USTR by states. The NCSL group asked the Vermont Commission to consider sending a letter to Senator Leahy asking that he request a GAO report on this issue.
Senator Lyons also reported on the Public Citizen conference she attended and expressed that other states were very interested in working together on trade issues.
General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and Domestic Regulation
Documents distributed:
Peter Riggs, Director, Forum on Democracy and Trade and Robert Stumberg, Director, Harrison Institute for Public Law, Georgetown University Law Center, testified via telephone. They reviewed a one page outline of their testimony, as well as a power point presentation.
Peter Riggs and Robert Stumberg explained GATS is a global agreement on government regulation of services and investment. It is very powerful because it covers services that tend to be regulated by the states or directly provided by local governments. They explained how GATS works, why domestic regulation is a trade issue, who decides on World Trade Organization (WTO) proposals and what Vermont can do to provide more effective oversight of GAT negotiations.
Bob Stumberg said there were very important GATS negotiations going on right now. Several countries have proposed new "disciplines" on how governments regulate domestic service providers like health facilities, utility companies and shopping centers. They suggested Vermont could assess how these proposals could impact state regulation, correspond directly with the USTR, connect with other states and working groups, hold public hearings and briefings, as well as ask for more congressional oversight.
NAFTA, Rules of Origin, Eligibility Requirements
Robert Decamp, Director, Regulatory Affairs, Derringer Logistics, spoke about the complexity of compliance with NAFTA and its rules. Mr. Decamp focused on the eligibility of goods for importation under NAFTA. He discussed the difficulty of educating and training companies in the proper importation of goods and how small to midsize companies lack the general expertise to ensure compliance. As a result, a significant portion of goods imported under NAFTA are likely ineligible. In addition, clarifying or streamlining importation requirements will be difficult if not impossible due to the multiple--and often conflicting--importation requirements and definitions in NAFTA and other various trade agreements. Consequently, he said, it is unlikely that NAFTA's ambiguous importation requirements will change in the near future.
Intergovernmental Policy Advisory Committee (IGPAC) Recommendations for a Federal-State Trade Policy Commission
Documents distributed:
Kay Alison Wilkie, International Policy Analyst, Empire State Development/NYS Department of Economic Development testified via telephone. She testified in her capacity as Chair of IGPAC and focused on recommendations related to the federal/state trade policy framework.
Kay Wilkie said Federal resources dedicated to assist state agencies’ implementation of relevant trade agreements are largely nonexistent, leaving state officials to grapple with often confusing and inconsistent information; that state officials may be unaware of existing international trade agreement commitments made under prior administrations; that gaps exist between federal agencies’ understanding of the varied state processes and socioeconomic contexts and states’ understanding of federal requests; that gaps and barriers create a disincentive for state support of trade liberalization, noting that states that participate in international trade and investment agreements, and wish to comply with commitments, face legal, political and resource challenges.
She said IGPAC’s key recommendation was to create a federal-state international trade/investment policy commission to provide institutional structure for continuous bipartisan consultation about US federal-state trade policy.
Vermont Global Trade Partnership and Vermont Trade Statistics
Documents distributed:
Dana Eidsness, Director of International Trade, Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development, distributed procurement letters she had assembled from the current and the former Administration at the request of the Commission. She also reviewed a power point presentation she prepared for the Commission. current and the former Administration at the request of the Commission. She also reviewed a power point presentation she prepared for the Commission. She discussed the importance of the global economy to Vermont, saying that trade means jobs, that global companies pay higher wages and that export companies are healthier. She discussed Vermont in the context of the global economy: $4.2 billion of exports in 2005, export-supported jobs linked to manufacturing account for an estimated 6.6 percent of Vermont’s total private-sector employment; approximately 16.9 thousand jobs in Vermont are supported by exports; 12,000 Vermont jobs are supported by U.S.-Canada trade; Vermont exported to 135 foreign destinations in 2005 and it’s largest trading partner is Canada with $2.1 billion market in 2005.
She said the mission of the partnership is to provide, through collaboration, sustainable, cost effective and coordinated assistance to Vermont companies doing business in the global marketplace with emphasis on providing technical assistance, information, facilitation, training and support. The services provided include: research and technical assistance, counseling, educational programs, trade missions and shows.
Future Meeting Planning and Discussion
Senator Lyons and Representative Keenan said they were still in discussions with their respective leaders about trade issues and how to proceed during the session. They said no decisions could be made prior to committee chairs being appointed and committee schedules being developed.
Senator Lyons said there is a host of pressing trade issues the Legislature could work on, including Fast Track and that it was important to educate legislators and to have a dialogue, as well as to hear from the public through public hearings.
The Commission agreed to meet Monday, January 29, at 1:30 p.m., Room 11, Vermont State House.
At 4:35 p.m. the Commission adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Rachel Levin
Legislative Council